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THE 

REVOLUTIONARY SOLDIERS 



OF 



DELAWARE. 



A PAPER 



READ BY 



WILLIAM G. WHITELEY, ESQ., 



BEFORE THE TWO HOUSES OF THE DELAWARE LEGISLATURE, 



Fehracury 15 th, 1875. 



PRINTED BY ORQBK OF THE LEGISLATURE. 



»'' 



f-' U.S.A. ) 



WILMINGTON, DELAWARE: 

JAMES & WEBB, PRINTERS, 
1875. 



"^ W^ '.■.'. . 



The following paper was prepared for and read before 
the Historical Society of Delaware ; and was afterwards, by 
request, read before the Legislature. 

For many of the facts and incidents stated, it is proper 
to say that the writer is indebted to " The Life of George 
Read," by William T. Read, Esq. ; the various lives of Gene- 
ral Greene ; " Huffington's Delaware Register," and " Lee's 
Memoirs." 



THE 



REVOLUTIONARY SOLDIERS 



OF DELA\A^ARE. 



ot<Kc 



Gentlemen of the 

Senate and House of Representatives : 

I feel confident that you will not consider it pedantic if I 
begin this paper with an extract from Sallust : — who says, in 
his history of the Jugurthine war : 

''Sa;pe audivi, O. Maximum, P. Scipio, pr^etorea civitatis nostrae pr^- 
claros viros, solitos ita dicere, cum majorum imagines intuerentur, vehe- 
mentissime sibi animum ad virtutem accendi. Scilicet non ceram illam, 
neque figuram tantam vim in sese habere ; sed memoria rerum gestarum 
earn flammam egregiis viris in pectore crescere, neque prius sedari, quam 
virtus eorum famam atque gloriam adasquavei it. 

"Often have I heard that Ouintus Maximus, Publius Scipio, and other 
renowned men of our commonwealth, used to say, that whenever they beheld 
the images of their ancestors, they felt their minds greatly excited to virtue. 
It could not be the wax or the marble which possessed this power, but the 
recollection of their great actions kindled a generous flame in their breasts, 
not to be quelled, till they also by valor had acquired equal fame and glory." 



6 ■ REVOLUTIONARY SOLDIERS 

It is not so much to excite a spirit of emulation of the 
deeds of our ancestors, that I have consented to read before 
your Bodies, a paper on "The Revolutionary Soldiers of Del- 
aware," as it is to do something, however little, to prevent 
their deeds from being forgotten. Both as a State, and as in- 
dividuals we have been very negligent of the collection and 
preservation of the facts relating to the part our State took in 
the Revolution. Whatever the State had in the way of Jour- 
nals of the colonial legislature, were in manuscript, and man}' 
of them have been lost ; and but few of the original rolls and 
other returns of the regiments are in the Secretary of State's 
office. 

We have had, several attempts to give a history of 
our regiments, but it was in every case imperfect and often 
erroneous ; it could not and cannot well be otherwise ; 
the data being so insufficient and unsatisfactory. This is to 
be regretted ; for we, of Delaware, have great and just cause 
to be proud of the acts, conduct and heroism of our Revolu- 
tionary Soldiers. In less than a month after the declaration 
of Independence we had eight hundred men in the field ; who 
fought at Brooklyn, White Plains, Trenton and Princeton ; and 
by April of 1777, we had another regiment of like number ; who 
fought at Brandywine, Germantown, Monmouth, Camden — 
twice at Camden, Cowpens, Guilford, Ninety-six, and at Eu- 
taw ; and this latter one never laid down its arms, though re- 
duced almost to a corporal's guard, until Cornwallis laid down 
his arms at Yorktown, and Leslie evacuated Charleston. In 
fact there was not a battle during the Revolution worthy of 
name, except the Battles of Bunker Hill and Yorktown, in 
which one of the " Delaware Regiments" did not participate. 
And in the latter, though Hall's Regiment itself, or rather what 
was left of it, was not present, it being at that time with 
Greene in the Carolinas, seven hundred recruits raised in 
Maryland and Delaware for Smallwood's and Kirkwood's reg- 
ments, were stopped on their march to join their respective 
regiments, and ordered to join the army before Yorktown : 
and in this way the regiment itself may be said to have par- 
ticipated also in the siege and battle of Yorktown — the decisive 
battle of the war. 



OF DELAWARE. / 

Our population, at the outbreak of the Revolution, being 
only 37,500, the number of troops we could furnish could not 
be very large, and yet, by the second year of the war, we fur- 
nished and sent to the front, three Regiments, viz : Col. Has- 
let's, Col. Patterson's and Col. Hall's, and a partisan Company, 
Capt. Allen McLane's. 

Haslet's Regiment, as will be hereafter seen, remained in 
the army only up to the battle of Princeton. 

Patterson's was a part of the " Flying Camp," as it was 
called, a body of men called out for temporary duty, which 
will also be explained hereafter. They were both 5/^/^' troops ; 
that is, troops organized under our Colonial laws, and fur- 
nished by the colony or State of Delaware, upon the call of 
the Congress, who appointed their field officers. The Regi- 
ment of Col. Hall was the only " Continental" one we 
furnished. " Continental," because it was organized under a 
law of the Continental Congress, and this is the Regiment 
referred to, when we speak of the " Delaware Regiment." 

I shall write of the three in their order. 

Col. Henry Neall had, in the latter part of the war, a 
Regiment called the Second Delaware Battalion, but I do not 
find .that it was in any battle. 

Before I refer to Haslet's Regiment and its officers — the 
first Regiment raised — raised in fact before the Declaration of 
Independence, and participating in the battle of Brooklyn, or 
Long Island in less than a month after it marched from Dover, 
permit me to refer to the feeling in our State in reference to 
the war of the Revolution. Whilst a majority of our people 
were undoubtedly friendly and favorable to it, there were a 
great many who were honestly opposed to an appeal to arms 
against the mother country. Some took this view from a con- 
viction that the evils complained of were trifling ; some, that 
though the wrongs were great. Great Britain, upon a fair re- 
presentation being made of them, would at once redress 
them ; some, conscientiously believed their allegiance to be 
due to the Government under which they were born, and 
refused to throw it off; and others, I am constrained to say, 
though few in numbers, were actuated by fear, and a desire to 



8 REVOLUTIONARY SOLDIERS 

protect their persons and property. The views and positions 
taken by the first three classes, viz, those who thought the 
evils trifling ; those who thought the mother country would 
redress them without an appeal to arms ; and those who re- 
fused to throw off their allegiance ; are not to be wondered at, 
when we consider their descent, which was purely English, 
-j- The people of Kent and Sussex especially were so ; there was 
with them no intermixture of other nations ; there had been 
with them but very few Irish, fewer Scotch, and absolutely 
none from the Continental nations ; they were also a pecu- 
liarly isolated people ; off of the routes of what little travel- 
ing was done in those days, few of them, besides their mer- 
chants, ever visiting Philadelphia, Wilmington or Baltimore ; 
an agricultural, and, of course, a conservative people, not dis- 
posed to change their views without due deliberation, and for 
weighty reasons, they both lived and clothed themselves 
from off of their farms : they paid no taxes upon anything, 
especially not upon their Ua, for t/uir tea was made from the 
root of the sassafras. It is not, therefore, surprising that these 
people for awhile hung back, and did not unite zealously and 
ardently in the cause of the Colonies ; that they should 
require some electioneering, some personal influence, some 
arguments to be brought to bear upon them. There was a 
man, however, to do this, and who did it, and nearly all of our 
people holding these views became, in a short time, under his 
persuasive eloquence, ardent Whigs. That man was Caesar 
Rodney. Let us see what he did, ably seconded, of course, by 
George Read and Thomas McKean, his colleagues in the Con- 
tinental Congress. Upon the /th of June, 1776, Richard 
Henry Lee, of Virginia, introduced his justly celebrated reso- 
lution " that the United Colonies are, and of right ought to 
be, free and independent States ; and that the political con- 
nection between them and Great Britain is, and ought to be, 
totally dissolved." 

This resolution was debated on the 8th and loth days of 
June by Congress in committee of the whole, but, as Mr. Jef- 
ferson says in his memoirs, " it appearing that New York, 
Pennsylvania, Delaware and Maryland were not yet matured 



OF DELAWARE. 9 

for falling from the parent stem, but were rapidly maturing to 
that state, it was thought prudent to wait awhile for them, and 
to postpone the final decision until July the first." The reso- 
lutions of our General Assembly, passed March 22d, 1776, 
instructing our deputies in Congress, did not authorize them 
to vote tor independence, but enjoined on them to *' embrace 
every favorable opportunity to effect a reconciliation with 
Great Britain." 

Upon the postponement of the debate on Lee's resolution, 
Rodney immediately started for Dover, and chiefly through 
his influence, the General Assembly, then in session, passed 
unanimously, on the 14th of June A. D. 1776, new instructions 
to our deputies in Congress, authorizing them " to concur 
with the other delegates in Congress, in adopting such meas- 
ures as shall be judged necessary for promoting the liberty, 
the safety and interests of America, &c., &c." Under these 
instructions our whole delegation signed the Declaration of 
Independence. But Rodney's influence had been at work 
before this. Spending a few days in Congress, which, as you 
know, sat in Philadelphia, he would suddenly leave that city, 
at night, and drive to Dover, from there to Sussex, haranguing, 
talking, imploring, until, by the time the General Assembly 
met in June, 1776, he had talked the people up to the separat- 
ing point ; he had ripened the fruit until it fell " from the parent 
stem," and, I think, to him, more than to any other man in 
Delaware, do we owe the position which our State and people 
took in that, to us and to the world, most important contest. 
John Adams, in his diary, thus describes him : " Cassar Rodney 
is the oddest looking man in the world : He is tall, thin and 
slender, and pale ; his face is not bigger than a large apple, 
yet, there is sense, and fire, spirit, wit and humor in his 
countenance." 

But there was a class of our people whom even Rodney 
could not influence, and who constituted the " Delaware 
Tories." They were those who thought it for their interest, 
" better for the safety of their persons and property," to be 
loyalists. They argued that this Peninsula had an extensive 
border ; on the Delaware side bounded by the Delaware Bay 



lO REVOLUTlOiSiARV SOLDIERS 

and Atlantic Ocean ; on the Maryland side by the Chesapeake 
Bay; that it was thus open to the incursions of a powerful 
enemy, whose fleets surrounded it on every side, and it was 
not safe to render themselves obnoxious to a power who 
could at any time seize upon their persons and property. 
These people, though few, had their influence ; their appeals 
were to the strongest motives actuating humanity, to wit : 
the safety of life, and limb, and property. But as we have 
seen, a large majority of our people resisted them, how nobly 
and bravely, let Rodney say. In a letter written by him 
during the struggle, he says : 

"He that dare acknowledge himself a Whig, near the waters of the 
Delaware, where not only his property, but his person, is every hour in 
danger of being carried off, is more, in my opinion, to be depended upon, 
than a. dozen W^/^^^j- in security." 

But to the history of Haslet's regiment. 

Before the Declaration of Independence a regiment had 
been raised by Col. John Haslet, and mustered into the state's 
service ; it was composed of eight companies and numbered 
eight hundred men. Its officers were appointed by the Con- 
gress, upon recommendations made by the Council of Safe- 
ty of the "Three Lower Counties of Delaware." That is, the 
Council recommended to Congress the names of several per- 
sons for Colonel, Lieutenant Colonel, and Major, from whom 
the Congress elected by ballot, these various officers. Upon 
January 19th, 1776, this election was proceeded with ; and, as 
the Journals of Congress say, "the ballots being taken, John 
Haslet, Esquire, was elected Colonel ; Gunning Bedford, 
Esquire, Lieutenant Colonel ; and John Macpherson, Esquire, 
Major." But Macpherson was dead before he was elected. He 
was, as will be seen hereafter, an aid to General Montgomery, 
and w^as killed along side of his General in the storming of 
Quebec, December 31st, 1775 ; the intelligence of his death not 
having been received on January 19th, 1776, when he was 
elected Major. But this intelligence reaching the Delaware 
Assembly sometime in March, this entry is found in the Jour- 
nals of Congress. 



OF DELAWARE. II 

" The Assembly of the Counties on Delaware, having 
recommended a gentleman to be Major of the Battalion or- 
dered to be raised in those Counties in the room of John Mac- 
pherson, who fell before Quebec, and never received his com- 
mission ; the Congress proceeded to the election, and the bal- 
lots being taken and examined, Thomas McDonough was 
elected, March 22d, 1776." 

The officers of the regiment were 

Colonel, John Haslet. 

Lieutenant Colonel, Gunning Bedford. 

Major, Thomas McDonough. 

Surgeon, James Tilton. 

Chaplain, Joseph Montgomery. 

A company consisting of ninety privates, commanded by Captain Joseph 
Stidham^ of which Robert Kirkzuood was first Lieutenant and Enoch An- 
derson Second Lieutenant. 

A company consisting of ninety-one privates, commanded by Captain 
Nathan Adams ; of which Jatnes Moore was First Lieutenant and James 
Gordon Second Lieutenant. 

A company consisting of ninety-seven privates, commanded by Captain 
Samuel Stnith ; of which John Dixon was First Lieutenant and James 
McDonough was Second Lieutenant. 

A company consisting of ninety privates, commanded by Captain Chas. 
Pope ; of which James Wells was First Lieutenant and Alexander Stew- 
art * was Second Lieutenant. 

A company consisting of ninety privates, commanded by Captain Jon- 
athan Cald-cuell ; of which John Patten was First Lieutenant and George 
McCall \i2i% Second Lieutenant. 

A company consisting of ninety-three privates, commanded by Captain 
Henry Darby ; of which Lewis Worrell was First Lieutenant and Wil- 
liam Popham was Second Lieutenant. 

A company consisting of ninety-one privates, commanded by Captain 
Joseph Vaughan j of which Joseph Truitt was First Lieutenant and John 
Perkins was Second Lieutenant. 



12 REVOLUTIONARY SOLDIERS 

A company consisting of ninety-two privates, commanded by Captain 
David Hall ; of which Genet/tan Harney * was First Lieutenant and John 
Learmojith was Second Lieutenant. 

In a few days after the news of the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence was received at Dover, the regiment marched to 
the Head Quarters of the army, which was then at New York. 
I cannot find out precisely when they arrived at Head Quar- 
ters, but it could not have been long before the middle of Au- 
gust. They marched from Dover to New York without tents : 
how provisions were supplied them does not appear, but 
it is more than probable they supplied themselves along 
the route. They were brigaded with four Pennsylvania regi- 
ments, and Smallwood's Maryland Regiment, and Lord Ster- 
ling was the Brigadier. Upon August 27th, 1776, certainly 
not more than five weeks (one writer puts it three weeks) 
after marching from Dover, they were in the battle of Brook- 
lyn, or Long Island, as it is sometimes called. And in this 
battle they behaved with the courage and firmness of veteran 
soldiers. It was said that the Delawares and Marylanders 
fought as bravely as men could possibly do. The Marylanders 
had two hundred and fifty-nine men missing, many of whom 
were killed. This was owing chiefly to their being separated, 
by which means the enemy got between them, and obliged 
them to fight in small parties. But " the Delawares being 
well-trained, kept and fought in a compact body the whole 
time, and when obliged to retreat, kept their ranks, and en- 
tered the lines in that order, and were obliged, frequently, 
while retreating, to fight their way through bodies of the 
enemy." 

C?esar Rodney, in a letter to Thomas Rodney, dated 
October 2nd, 1776, \\ riting of the battle of Brooklyn, says : 
(Thomas was his brother, and father of Caesar A. Rodney.) 

" One paragraph of the old man's letter is very full of the great honor 
obtained by the Delaware Battalion in the affair at Long Island, from the 

The companies, as I have given them, are not in the order in which they were in the Regiment. 
"First Company," &c., as the Rolls, which I have found in the Secretary of State's office, do not give 
their numbers ; neither have I been able to ascertain who was the Adjutant of the Regiment. 

* Killed at the battle of Brooklyn. 



OF DELAWARE. 13 

unparalleled bravery they showed in view of all the Generals and troops 
within the lines, who alternately praised and pitied them." 

This refers to cutting their way, whilst falling back, through 
bodies of the enemy. 

In a subsequent letter to the same, he says : 

" The Delaware and Maryland Regiments stood firm to the last ; they 
stood for four hours drawn up on a hill, in close array, their colors flying, 
the enemy's artillery playing upon them ; nor did they think of quitting 
their station until an express order from the General commanded them to 
retreat;" and closes his letter, after giving the number of killed, wounded 
and missing, with the remark, " The standard was torn with shot in Ensign 
Stephens' hands." 

The Regiment lost thirty-one in this battle, including 
two officers, viz : Lieut. Stewart and Lieut. Harney : Major 
McDonough, Lieut. Anderson and Ensign Course were slightly 
wounded. It must have been a great disappointment to Col. 
Haslet, as also to Lieutenant-Colonel Bedford, that they were 
denied a participation in this battle ; to Haslet particularly ; 
the Regiment was his pet. He, more than any other man, 
raised it, and this its, and should have been his, first battle. 
But he and Bedford both being members of a General Court 
Martial, for the trial of a Lieutenant-Colonel Zidwitz, of a 
New York Regiment, for correspondence with the enemy, 
were sitting on that Court, in New York, on the day of the 
fight. But the Regiment was in good hands, those of Major 
McDonough. Our army retreated after this battle to the 
city of New York side, and our Regiment being placed in 
General Mifflin's Brigade, was sent to King's Bridge. 

The next general battle in which the Regiment partici- 
pated, was the battle of White Plains ; then at Trenton on 
Christmas day, 1776. Here the English lost in killed, wounded 
and missing, about nine hundred men. I have not been able 
to obtain any particulars relating to our Regiment in these 
two battles. They, however, took an efficient part, nine days 
afterward, in the battle of Princeton, which was fought on 
January 3d, 1777, and here Col. Haslet was killed while lead- 



14 REVOLUTIONARY SOLDIERS 

ing- his Regiment gallantly into action. He was charging on 
the British lines, about sunrise, and was instantly killed by a 
wound through his head, from a rifle-bullet. 

John Haslet, who has been truly called the father of his 
Regiment, lived at the tinie of the breaking out of the war at 
Dover. He was born in Ireland. He was educated for the 
ministry of the Dissenters — Presbyterian — and preached for 
some time ; but subsequently studied medicine, and practiced 
it with much success in Kent County. He was tall and athletic, 
and of generous and ardent feelings, as his birth-place would 
indicate. He was a leading Whig, and evidently Caesar 
Rodney's right-hand man ; the one he depended on to get 
the people right on the question of Independence, as well as 
raising and enlisting soldiers to fight for it. Rodney wrote 
him from Congress, daily ; and when Independence was de- 
clared, he despatched Ensign Wilson, on the night of the 
Fourth of July, on horseback, to carry to Haslet, at Dover, the 
news, and the unanimity in our delegation in signing the 
Declaration. How Haslet rejoiced, let his answer to Rodney 
tell. In reply, on July 6th, he says : 

" I congratulate you, Sir, on the important day which restores to every 
American his birth-right; a day which every freeman will record with grati- 
tude, and the millions of posterity read with rapture. Ensign Wilson 
arrived here last night. A fine turtle feast at Dover anticipated and an- 
nounced the declaration of Congress ; even the Barrister himself laid aside 
his airs of reserve ; mighty happy." 

As the late Mr. William T. Read, of New Castle, remarks 
in his life of his father, George Read, "The State of Delaware 
has not been unmindful of the services and merits of Colonel 
Haslet." In 1777, his remains were deposited in the burying 
ground of the First Presbyterian Church, in Philadelphia. In 
1783, our Legislature caused a marble slab to be placed over 
his grave ; and, in 1841, February 22d, they appointed a com- 
mittee to superintend the removal of his remains to a vault to 
be built in the cemetery of the Presbyterian Church, at Dover, 
and authorized them to have a suitable monument, with ap- 
propriate inscriptions and devices, prepared and placed over 



OF DELAWARE. I 5 

this, his final resting place. On July ist, 1841, his remains were 
disinterred, and conveyed to Dover, escorted by the military 
of the city of Philadelphia ; and on July 3d, after impressive 
religious services, and an eloquent address from the Hon. John 
M. Clayton, they were deposited in the vault prepared for 
them. The slab placed over his grave in Philadelphia, in 
1783, is preserved, b}- having been made one of the sides of 
this tomb, and bears this inscription : 

In memory of JOHN Haslet, Esquire, Colonel of the Delaware 

Regiment, who fell gloriously at the battle of Princeton, 

in the cause of American Independence, 

January 3d, 1777. 

The General Assembly of the State of Delaware, remembering 

His virtues as a man, 

His merits as a citizen. 

and 

His services as a soldier, 

Have caused this monumental stone, in testimony of their respect, 

To be placed over his grave, 

MDCCLXXXIII. 

The other inscription on the monument is ; 

Erected by the State of Delaware, 

as a tribute of respect, 

to the memory of Colonel John Haslet, 

whose remains, according to a resolution of the Legislature, 

passed February 22, 1841, 

were removed from their resting place, 

in the grave-yard of the First Presbyterian Church, 

in the city of Philadelphia, 

and here re-interred 
on Saturday, July 3d, 1841. 

Col. Haslet left a son and two daughters. The son, 
Joseph Haslet, was twice, in 181 1 and 1823, elected Governor 
of this State ; an honor Delaware never conferred upon any 
other citizen. He was elected, however, under our old Con- 
stitution ; under the present one, a Governor elected by the 
people is ineligible ever afterwards. One of his daughters. 



l6 . REVOLUTIONARY SOLDIERS 

Jemima, married Dr. George Monro, who was a skillful and 
learned physician, resident in Wilmington, from 1797 until his 
death in 1820. Of Dr. Monro's children, the only survivor is 
the present Mrs. Mary A. Boyd, of Wilmington. The other 
daughter of Col. Haslet married Major Patten, but died 
childless. 

Of the Lieutenant-Colonel ; Gunning Bedford. He was 
prevented as we have seen, by engagement upon a Court- 
Martial, from participating in the battle of Long Island. He 
was with his Regiment, however, in the battle of White Plains, 
and was there wounded. He was also with it throughout the 
year 1776, but at the battles of Trenton and Princeton, 
he was on Washington's staff, as I believe, a volunteer 
aid. 

His Regiment, having been reduced to less than one hun- 
dred men at the time of the battle of Princeton, and still 
lower by that battle, and Haslet, its Colonel, having been 
killed, was never reorganized, and Bedford retired from the 
army. After the peace, he was Attorney General of our 
State ; member of the Legislature ; one of our delegates to 
the Convention which framed the Constitution of the United 
States, and was the first Judge of the District Court of the 
United States ; having been appointed by Washington. 

The first Major of this Regiment, though he never joined 
it, in fact, as I have stated, was dead — killed before Quebec — 
before he was commissioned, deserves a passing notice. John 
Macpherson was born in Philadelphia ; studied law, however, 
in this State, with John Dickinson, and practiced it in New 
Castle. He was a young man of fine talents, and soon 
acquired a respectable practice ; and in 1774 upon the resig- 
nation of George Read, of the office of Attorney General of 
the State, he was an applicant for the place, but was not ap- 
pointed. When the war became inevitable he offered his 
services to his country, and having become acquainted with 
General Montgomery, they soon became bosom friends, and 
he was made by Montgomery his Aid-de-Camp. They were 
both killed by the same gun, as was Montgomery's other aid, 
Cheeseman. As the last of the British soldiers fled from the 



OF DELAWARE, 17 

Battery, Montgomery attacked, they discharged a gun in 
their flight, and from it, among others, fell these three brave 
men, and after that, the attack failed. The English officers, for- 
getting their foes, in the heroes, their adversaries, gathered 
up their breathless remains, and committed them to kindred 
earth, with pious hands and honors meet. 

Thomas McDonough, elected, as we have seen, Major in 
place of Macpherson, was a physician, living and practicing 
his profession at the village, now called for him, in St. George's 
Hundred, in New Castle county. He did not remain in the 
service after the battle of Princeton. Upon Haslet's death the 
Regiment was disbanded. A great many of its officers having 
obtained commissions in Hall's Regiment, joined it, or had 
joined it, before the battle of Princeton. Major McDonough 
returned to private life and to his profession. He was the 
father of Commodore Thomas McDonough, celebrated in the 
last war with England, as the victor in the battle of Lake 
Champlain. 

The army under Washington being, in the summer and 
fall of 1776, occupied in the defence of New York, the shores 
of New Jersey, of Pennsylvania, Delaware and Maryland were 
open to the British, who, disembarking their troops anywhere 
along these shores, could march them not only into the very 
heart of the confederacy, but could take our army in the rear. 
Congress, therefore, called on New Jersey, Delaware and 
Maryland, to raise, equip and march ten thousand men to 
form a " flying camp," to protect the Middle Colonies, and to 
serve until December ist, 1776. 

The Battalion called for, furnished by Delav,-are, was 
placed under the command of Col. Samuel Patterson. He 
owned a grist mill on the Christiana, above the village of 
Christiana, (now Smalley's mill) and carried on the business 
of a miller there. He also as appears by his epitaph upon his 
tomb in the Presbyterian Church yard, at Christiana, was a 
Brigadier General of our State Militia. 

He does not appear to have had a happy time with his 
troops, but it was not his fault. The mode and terms of 
enlistment, the manner in which the officers were chosen, &c., 



l8 REVOLUTIONARY SOLDIERS 

all was fatal to everything like discipline. After he got them 
to Philadelphia about one-half of them laid down their arms, 
and swore they would not go, without the same bounty that 
the Pennsylvania troops received. He succeeded, however, in 
getting most of them off, by threatening to send for two 
battalions of other troops and having them all disarmed and 
arrested. In a letter to George Read, written from Philadel- 
phia, September 19th, 1776, in giving an account of his 
trouble, as above, in getting his men to march, he says : 

" I at last got them down to the wharf, fixed bayonets at the head of it, 
and sent them off. Capt. Woodgate's arms not being done, I kept his 
Company to go with me, but this morning I learned, to my astonishment, 
that his whole Company, save eleven men, had deserted during the night," 

And then adds, 

"I shall give you a small opinion on Battalion affairs. If ever you order 
one other, never sacrifice liberty to licentiousness, by leaving the officers to 
be chosen as mine were. Had I known the men in general, I would not 
have went with them. Some few excessive good, others, perhaps, another 
day may be brave, not at present. In my opinion, they had better have 
staid at home." 

In another letter to the same, of the date of September 
22d, 1776, from New Brunswick, he tells Mr. Read to have all 
the deserters arrested, and not to suffer them to pilfer the 
public money and all arms and accoutrements. 

In another letter of October 4, 1776, from Amboy, he 
appears in rather better humor, except with the Kent and 
Sussex levies. He says, he has four hundred and sixty-one 
men, rank and file. But adds : 

" If ever I come campaigning again, I should never be for bringing up 
the men from belo%v. They are not fit for faiigue, have no constitutions, 
and are always dissatisfied. Almost fifty or sixty of them every day sick 
and unfit for duty, and fond of desertion, as you have seen at Philadelphia. ■' 

However, in a postscript, he adds : 
'' Since they left Philadelphia, the Battalion is sorry for their misbe- 



OF DELAWARE. 1 9 

havior. It was owing to a rascal telling them they were fools to go without 
their bounty." 

The Colonel was mistaken in his estimate of the lower 
County troops ; his anger and worriment at the conduct of 
some of them biased his judgment. Of this no other proof 
need be adduced than that, at least one-half, if not more, 
of both Haslet's and Hall's Regiments were from the coun- 
ties of Kent and Sussex, and no men fought better, or 
withstood more fatigue ; and the gallant Captain Caldwell 
and his Company, from whom our soldiers derived the name 
of " Blue Hen's Chickens," were from Kent County. 

Patterson himself got improved in his humor and estimate 
of his men later along. On November 4th, in writing to Read, 
he says : 

" I have some noble officers in my Battalion, whom I could recommend, 
if a door open," 

and in the only skirmish they had with the British, speaks 
highly of the conduct of his men. 

The truth is that it was not alone in Patterson's Regi- 
ment that there was dissatisfaction, that it was not receiving 
a bounty equal to the Pennsylvania troops, which caused such 
mutinous conduct.- There was, in the latter part of 1776 and 
early part of 1777, great difficulty in getting troops through- 
out all the Colonies. It was not alone in Delaware. Whether 
the opinion was becoming fixed, that we would fail, that Great 
Britain would conquer us, I know not. But such was the fact. 
One thing, I think the Congress relied too much on the militia. 
Troops should have been raised by volunteers, under calls 
upon the Colonies, and the troops thus raised engrafted on, or 
added to, the Continental army. Mr. Joseph Henry Rogers, 
of New Castle, has in his possession a roll, and the answers of 
the men, whom the then Sheriff of this County, John Clark, 
Esq., was endeavoring to enroll in a Militia Company, in the 
early part of 1777, for recruits for the Flying Camp. 



20 REVOLUTIONARY SOLDIERS 

Names. Ansivers. 

Slator Clay, Will not march. 

Richard Janvier, Will not march. 

John Powell, Ready and willing to march. 

David Morton, Same. 

George Read, Same. 

Thomas Cooch, Jr., Same. 

Robert Wiley, I'm damned if I march. 

Edward Sweeny, Family in distress. 

James Wilson, Hired one in his place. 

John Booth, Jr.. Substitute in Continental Army. 

Joseph Tatlow, Will not march. 

Daniel Smith, Son in his place. 

James Faith, Will not march. 

William Hazlett, I never will march. 

Thomas Nodes, I'm damned if I march. 

And so their answers went. Sick, absent, " will not nr>arch," 
&c., that out of a Company of sixty-three men only twenty- 
two proffered themselves ready and willing to march. 

The officers of the " Flying Camp" were : 

Samuel Patterson, Colonel. 
George Latimer,* Lieut. Colonel. 
William Moody, f Captain. 
Joseph Caldwell, Captain. 
Thomas Kean,t Captain. 
James Dunn, Captain. 
Thomas Skillington, Captain. 
Matt. Manlove, Captain. 
John VVoodgate, Captain. 
Nathaniel Mitchell, § Captain. 

The term of enlistment, however, of " The Flying Camp' 
expired on December 1st, 1776 ; winter, at that day,usually com- 



* George Latimer, whom I take to be the brother <if Dr. Henry Latimer, a Surgeon of the Revolu- 
tion, is thus spoken of in a letter from a British spy: — "At Newport is the habitation and effects 
of one of McKinley's Privy Council, a vile rebel, well known by the name of George Latimer — his 
father a Judge of Common Pleas." 

t Captain Moody was the father of John Moody,some years since a Sheriff of New Castle County. 

:; Captain Thomas Kean was the father of the late Matthew Kean of Wilmington. 

.S Nathaniel Mitchell was from Susse.v County, and in 1805 elected Governor of the State. 



OF DELAWARE. 21 

mencing- by that time, which was protection enough both to the 
Middle Colonies and Washington's rear ; and the soldiers com- 
posing the camp returned to their homes, much to their own 
pleasure and doubtless the same to their commander. Con- 
gress had, by the fall of 1776, become enlightened on the sub- 
ject of militia, and short terms of enlistment. The troubles and 
dissatisfaction in what might be called the regular army, as 
well as in "The Flying Camp," demonstrated, that if success 
was to be obtained, the army must be reorganized. And, 
therefore, on September i6th, 1776, Congress resolved "that 
eighty-eight Battalions be enlisted as soon as possible, to 
serve during the present war, and that each State furnish 
their respective quotas in the following proportions." With- 
out giving them at length, it is only necessary to say, that 
Delaware's quota was one Battalion— a Battalion in Revolu- 
tionary times meant eight hundred men. The resolution of 
Congress gave the very small bounty of twenty dollars to 
non-commissioned officers and privates, and one hundred 
acres of land to those who served during the war, or to their 
children, if they were killed, and provided that though the 
officers should be commissioned by Congress, their appoint- 
ment, except General officers, was to be left to the Govern- 
ment of the several States, and each State must provide 
arms, clothing, &c., &c. 

This was a step in the right direction, and made the army 
what it afterward became, fit, able and capable to compete 
with the British soldiers. Let us see what effect it had on 
the then army. Haslet's Regiment will serve for an illustra- 
tion. He had left Dover in July Vvith eight hundred men, not 
precisely militia, but our State troops, as they were called. It 
is true they had gone through the battles of Brooklyn and 
White Plains, but those could not have depleted it to the 
number I now state. In a general return of the army in ser- 
vice on November 3, 1776, Haslet's Delaware Regiment is 
returned as follows : 

One Colonel ; one Lieutenant-Colonel; three Captains; not a single 
First Lieutenant ; three Second Lieutenants ; live Ensigns; one Chaplain; 



22 REVOLUTIONARY SOLDIERS 

one Adjutant, and one Mate; twelve Sergeants ; nine Drummers and Fifers ; 
two hundred and seventy-three privates ; twenty-six sick and present, and 
two hundred and twenty-eight sick and absent — which meant at home — a 
total of only five hundred and forty eight, of which, officers included, of 
those present and fit for duty, about three hundred. 

The same general return was made on December 22nd. fol- 
lowing — three days before the battle of Trenton, and we find 
this state of things. Present and fit for duty : — One Colonel ; 
One Lieutenant-Colonel ; One First Lieutenant ; Not a single 
Second Lieutenant ; Two Ensigns ; One Adjutant ; One Mate ; 
Five Sergeants ; One Drummer and Fifer ; and ninety-two pri- 
vates ; Thirty-two present and sick ; a grand total of only one 
hundred and twenty-four, and all that constituted Haslet's Reg- 
iment in the battles of Trenton and Princeton ! Where were 
the ofificers, you will ask ; and where were the privates ? Dela- 
ware had been called on for her quota under this resolution of 
Congress ; the men to serve during the War was the attrac- 
tion, and Haslet's officers left him to get positions in the new 
regiment. Of Haslet's officers, Captain David Hall became 
Colonel of this new regiment ; Captain Charles Pope, its Lieu- 
tenant Colonel ; Captain Joseph Vaughan, its Major ; Lieu- 
tenant John Patten, a Captain ; Lieutenant Robert Kirkwood 
a Captain ; Lieutenant Anderson, a Lieutenant ; Ensign Peter 
Jaquett, a Captain ; Lieutenant Learmonth, a Captain, and 
Lieutenant James Moore a Captain. Thus nine officers from 
Haslet's Regiment obtained appointments in Colonel David 
Hall's new Regiment. These officers doubtless carried off a 
great many of their men. No wonder, therefore, that on the 
3rd of November and on the 22nd of December Haslet made 
such a poor show in his return of both officers and men. He 
himself had evidently become disgusted and chagrined ; there 
was found in his pocket when he was killed, an order per- 
mitting him to return home to recruit for his Regiment. 

This regiment of Hall's became the justly celebrated "Del- 
aware Regiment." The first company to join it was Captain 
John Patten's. They were mustered in on November 30th, 
1776. The second company was Captain Robert Kirkwood's, 



OF DELAWARE. 23 

mustered in on the next day, December ist, 1776. The com- 
missions of these two as Captains, bore these respective dates : 
Patten's, November 30th, and Kirkwood's, December ist, 
1776. 

As these two companies were the pioneers of the Regi- 
ment, I will give the names of their officers. 

First, Patten's. 

Captain, John Patten. 
Lieutenant, William McKennan. 
Ensign, Elijah Skillington. 
First Sergeant, William Maxwell. 
Second Sergeant, Archibald McBride, 
First Corporal, Henry Rowan. 
Second Corporal, David Young. 
Third Corporal, Dennis Dempsey. 
Privates, thirty-two. 

Kirkwood's was, 

Captain, Robert Kirkwood. 
Lieutenant, Richard Wilds. 
Ensign, Griffith Jordan. 
Sergeants, Daniel Cochran. 

" James Dougherty. 

" Samuel Davis. 

" Robert Hewes. 

Corporals, James Stenson. 

" Moses Joab. 

" James Lowery. 

" Archibald McBride. 

And twenty-two Privates. 

These and the other six companies, which afterward 
joined the Regiment, were filled up to the standard, during 
the winter and following spring. By the Journals of our Col- 
onial Legislature, it appears there was the usual difficulties 
and delays in filling up the Regiment, clothing and arming 
it. But by the beginning of April, all was completed, and the 
officers appointed. 



24 REVOLUTIONARY SOLDIERS 

They were as follows : 

Colonel, David Hall. 
Lieut. Colonel, Charles Pope. 
Major, Joseph Vaughan. 
Adjutant, George Purvis. 
Pay Master, Edward Roche. 
Quarter Master, Thomas Anderson. 
Surgeon, Reuben Gilder. 
Surgeon's Mate, John Piatt. 

Their commissions bear date April 5th, 1777. 

It is very difficult to obtain a correct history of the regi- 
ment for the years 1777-8 — 9. What we have is from tradi- 
tion, and the private letters and papers of its officers, and 
these last are very few and difficult to find ; the descendants 
of those officers apparently caring nothing for their preserva- 
tion, and those who have had the charge of the papers of the 
State have been equally negligent and careless of the preser- 
vation of the rolls, returns, and other records relating and 
belonging to the regiment. There are in the State House at 
Dover, but few original rolls, or other returns, or papers of 
any kind, of the regiment. 

But we know that the regiment joined Washington in 
the Jerseys in the spring of 1777, and participated in the Bat- 
tles of Brandywine, Germantown and Monmouth. 

We have, however, no historical account of the particular 
part or share borne by the Regiment in these battles. 
Brigades are the smallest bodies of troops mentioned in the 
returns in Battles of the size of these. But we know that 
they were not only with Washington in his Battles, but they 
were with him at Valley Forge, and throughout that long and 
dreary Winter bore their sufferings and deprivations as be- 
came American soldiers. 

It was in the South, however, where they won their im- 
mortality. 

The United States from the beginning of the war had been 
divided into two military departments, the Northern and 
Southern : the Southern consisting of the States of Virginia, 



OF DELAWARE. 2$ 

North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia ; all the rest of 
the States constituted the Northern. In the spring of 1780, 
the Southern delegates in Congress having for some time be- 
fore been urging the substitution of a more experienced Gen- 
eral in the South, the Congress added Maryland and Dela- 
ware to the Southern Department, and ordered General Gates 
South, as Commander-in-Chief of that Department. And the 
Maryland and Delaware troops then encamped around Mor- 
ristown,in New Jersey, were on April 13th, 1780 ordered South. 
Upon April i6th they took up their line of march. There 
were two Regiments from Maryland and our one, between 1400 
and 1500 men in all. The Baron De Kalb was assigned as 
their commander. I have not been able to obtain a Roll of 
the Regiment for the month of April 1780. The companies 
had become, in the winter of 1779-80 very much reduced, 
averaging only about thirty-five men ; but by the time of 
their order to the South, April 13, 1780, they had been re- 
cruited up to about sixty men each, making the Regiment 
about five hundred strong. 

I have the rolls of the different companies for February 
1780, but have no lists of the recruits. This is owing to the 
fact that after their march south there are no returns of the 
Regiment on file in Secretary of State's office. 

M7iste7' Roll of the Field, Staff, other officers and privates of the Delaware 

Regiment of Foot, commanded by CoL. David YiAhl., for the month of 

February, 1780. 

Date of Commission. Rank. 

1777, April 5, David Hall, Colonel. 

1777, April 5, Charles Pope, Lieutenant-Colonel. 

1777, April 5, Joseph Vaughan, Major. 

1778, Aug. 15, George Purvis, Adjutant. 
1778, Sept. 10, Edward Roche, Pay Master. 
1778, Sept. 10, Thomas Anderson, Quarter Master. 
1777, April 5, Reuben Gilder, Surgeon. 
1777, April 5, John Platt, Surgeon's Mate. 

FIRST COMPANY. 

1776, Nov. 30, John Patten, Captain. 

1777, April 5, Wm. McKennan, First Lieutenant. 

1778, Sept 8, Elijah Skillington, Second Lieutenant. 



26 



REVOLUTIONARY SOLDIERS 



Non-Co7timissio7ied Officers and Privates. 

First Sergeant, William Maxwell. Second Sergeant, Archibald McBride. 
First Corporal, David Young. Second Corporal, Dennis Dempsey. 

Third Corporal, Henry Rowan. Drummer, Benjamin Jones. 

Fifer, Joseph Staton. 



John Clifton, 
Patrick McCallister, 
Ebenezer Blackshire, 
Patrick Duey, 
John Andrews, 
William Walker, 
John Benson, 
Cornelius Hagney, 
Thomas McCann, 
Patrick Burk, 
Levin Leasatt, 
John Barnes, 
James Neill, 
William Kilty, 
William Newell, 
John Mitchell, 
James Brown, 



1776, Dec. I, 

1777, April 5, 

1778, Sept. 



Privates. 

Samuel Piles, 
Alexander Clark, 
Samuel Dodd, 
Richard Davis, 
Robert Miller, 
Frederick Reid, 
John McCabe, 
John McGill, 
John Hatfield, 
John Robinson, 
Isaac Griffin, 
Michael Dorman, 
Robert Dyer, 
James Bennett, 
Abraham Mears, 
Whittinton Clifton, 
Hugh Donnelly, 
John Highway. 

SECOND COMPANY. 

Robert Kirkwood, Captain. 
Daniel P. Cox, First Lieutenant, 

Charles Kidd, Second Lieutenant. 



N on-Commissioned Officers and Privates. 

First Sergeant, Jonathan Jordan. Second Sergeant, William Seymour. 
Third Sergeant, William Reddin. First Corporal, Nehemiah Nichols. 
Second Corporal, Christopher Willett. Drummer, Edward Robinson. 
Fifer, John Johnson. 

Privates. 



Adam Johnston, 
John McKnight, 
William Keys, 
Thomas Townshend, 
William Drew, 



John Carr, 
William Whitworth, 
Henry Willis, 
Eli Dodd, 
Stephen Bowen, 



OF DELAWARE. 



27 



John Stuart, 
Levi Bright, 
James Hammon, 
John Miller, 
Francis Williams, 
Benjamin Bennett, 
Stephen Anderson, 
John Brown, 
James Weighnwright, 
Benjamin Thompson, 
William Lewis, 
John Eirving, 



William Donaldson, 
Peter Croft. 
James Moones, 
Cornelius Grimes, 
Thomas Toole, 
Joseph Preston, 
Thomas Walker, 
William Heagans, 
Joseph Ferguson, 
Andrew Bollard, 
John Norman, 
Joseph Culver. 



1777, April 5, 

1778, Aug. 16, 
1778, Sept. 10, 



third company. 

John Learmonth, 
Henry Duff, 
Thomas Anderson, 



Captain. 

First Lieutenant. 
Second Lieutenant. 



N on-Commissioned Officers and Pr-ivates. 

First Sergeant, John Esham. 

Second Sergeant, George Collins. 

Third Sergeant, Seth Brooks. 

First Corporal, Charles Hamilton. 

Second Corporal, William Black. 

Drummer, William Hook. 

Fifer, William Skinner. 



Privates. 



Michael Lacatt, 
Levi Jackson, 
James Turner, 
Timothy Layfield, 
Eliakim Paris, 
William Barker, 
James Cook, 
James Crampton, 
George Hill, 
Thomas Hollston, 
William Lingo, 
Jeremiah Brown, 
William Hook, 
Charles Wharton, 
Dennis Flavin, 
Jonathan Ireland, 



John Watkins. 



Andrew Dixon, 
Mark Beckett, 
William Orton, 
Thomas Harper, 
Charles Connelly, 
George Mershaw, 
Samuel Latimore, 
John Middleton, 
William Plowman, 
Michael Garvin, 
Thomas Harris, 
Thomas Flinn, 
Henry Neisbett, 
Robert Heastings, 
Peter Ricords, 
David Davis, 



28 



REVOLUTIONARY SOLDIERS 



1777, April 5, 
1777, April 5, 
1779, Oct. 27, 



FOURTH COMPANY. 

Peter Jaquett, Captain. 

James Campbell, First Lieutenant. 

Stephen McWilliam, Second Lieutenant. 

N on-Commissioned Officers and Privates. 



First Sergeant, 
Second Sergeant, 
Third Sergeant, 
First Corporal, 
Second Corporal, 
Drummer, 



William Wallis, 
Isa Williams, 
William Ake, 
John Turner, 
William Wright, 
James Demar, 
Michael Dougherty, 
John Joland, 
James Redmand, 
William Jones, 
Andrew Daly, 
Johnson Fleetwood, 
Matthew Hilford, 
Henry Norwood, 
William Furbush, 
John Gasford, 
David Willaby, 



Mitchell Kershaw. 
Mordecai Berry. 
Jenkins Evins. 
Michael Elwood. 
Abijah Houston. 
Adam Joland. 



Privates. 



Casy Hall, 
Zadock Tucker, 
Thomas Derrick, 
Hambleton O'Neall, 
John Noble, 
Bartholomew Adams, 
Jacob McKinley, 
Hugh Fleming, 
William Simpson, 
John Cook, 
John Gorman, 
James Scott, 
John Castle, 
Timothy Kilkenny, 
Jacob Benton, 
Robert Stafford, 
John Peoples. 



1777, March i, 

1778, Jany. 26, 
1778, Sept. 10, 



fifth company. 

John Wilson, 
Paul Quenswalt, 
Edward Roche, 



Captain. 

First Lieutenant. 
Second Lieutenant. 



Non-Commissioned Officers and Privates. 



First Sergeant, Moses Pharis. Second Sergeant, John Cox. 

Third Sergeant, John Spencer. First Corporal, James Husbands. 

Second Corporal, Joseph Emertson. Third Corporal, John King. 
Fifer, Michael Green. 



OF DELAWARE. 



29 



Solomon Price, 
Robert Downs, 
Robert Timmons, 
Jesse Timmons, 
William Fleming, 
William Slay, 
Richard Moore, 
Nathaniel Norton, 
Joshua Brown, 
Nathan Arnot, 
William Fish, 
Samuel Miller, 
Samuel Long, 
Isaac Carrall, 



Privates. 

John Wiley, 
John Service, 
Elias Meeker, 
David Ellis, 
Frederick Vanderlip, 
Neil Levinston, 
Jacob Cork, 
John Hill, 
Benjamin Moody, 
Joseph McAfee, 
William Simpson, 
Isaac Landsley, 
Levin Painter, 
Kinley Haslett, 
Samuel Wooden. 



SIXTH COMPANY. 



1779, March i, 
1778, Sept. 10, 



John Corse, 
Caleb Brown, 



Captain. 

First Lieutenant. 



Noii-Cominissioned Officers and Privates. 



First Sergeant, James Murphy. 
Third Sergeant, Emanuel Pierson. 
Corporal, Charles Dowds. 
Fifer, John Jackson. 



Second Sergeant, Patrick Dunn. 
Corporal, Alexander McDonald. 
Corporal, Thomas Miller. 
Drummer, William Lewis. 



Privates. 



Patrick Flinn, 
John Todd, 
Zedekiah Ridgway, 
Littleton Pickron, 
William Burch, 
James Wilkinson, 
John Conner, 
John Hill, 
William Stanton, 
James Marsh, 
Harmon Clark, 
Purnell Truitt, 
Edward Hallo well, 



William Legg, 
Jasper Muscord, 
Thomas Rhodes, 
Richard Taylor, 
Anthony Delavonia, 
John King, 
William Dixon, 
John Furbis, 
John Stewart, 
William Perry, 
John Patterson, 
Roger McCormick, 
John Harris, 



30 



REVOLUTIONARY SOLDIERS 



James Carson, 
Moses Niells, 
John Blake, 
George Lea, 



John Bently, 
WilHam Grave, 
Samuel Bass, 
Edward Morris. 



1776, Dec. 4-, 
1778, Aug. 16, 



seventh company. 

John Rhodes, 
Caleb P. Bennett, 



Captain. 

First Lieutenant. 



N on-Commissioned Officers and Privates. 



First Sergeant, Hosea Wilson. 
First Corporal, Samuel Cross. 
Drummer, Robert Thompson. 



William Smith, 
William Willis, 
Patrick Coleman, 
Edward Conner, 
William Murphey, 
Thomas Saxon, 
Thomas Collins, 
Jacob Cook, 
Richard Hudson, 
Joshua Shehorn, 
John Hurbert, 
Christopher Crook, 
John Neilson, 
John Cornell, 



Second Sergeant, Charles Coulter. 
Second Corporal, Thomas Nash. 
Fifer, William Baily. 



Privates. 



Richard Pierson, 
Patten Burris, 
George Clifton, 
Neill McCann, 
William Kelty, 
Samuel Nicholas, 
Martemas Sipple, 
John Pemberton, 
Daniel Lawler, 
Richard Curryfoot, 
Johft Preston, 
Richard Harris, 
William Holt, 
John McConaughey, 



Richard Coffill. 



1777, Oct. 15, 

1778, Aug. 16, 



eighth company. 

George Purvis, 
Joseph Hosman, 



Captain. 

First Lieutenant. 



Non-Commissioiied Officers and Privates. 



Second Lieutenant, Joseph Hosman. First Sergeant, John Kowan. 
Second Sergeant Thomas McGuire. Third Sergeant, Thomas Thompson. 
First Corporal, Jacob Finly. Second Corporal, Dennis Leary. 

Third Corporal, James Corse. Drummer, David Miller. 

Fifer, John Hackney. 



OF DELAWARE. 31 



Privates. 



Jonathan Coote, Nathan Bowen, 

EUis Flower, William Peirson, 

Alexander Dunlap, Patrick McCurdy, 

Daniel Handley, Joseph Tapp, 

Alexander Flower, Zadock Morris, 

Patrick Mooney, John Random, 

John Lahcat, William Roe, 

Frederic Holden, John Phillips, 

John Duffy, Thomas Mason, 

John CuUen, Thomas Mattingly, 

Jesse Royall, Daniel Daily, 

John Purneill, William Oglesby, 

William Gattery, Daniel Murray, 

James Bersine, James Kennig, 

Charles Freeman, John Stephens, 

Levin Hicks, Thomas Gordan, 

Thomas Clark, Thomas Townsend. 

John Cazier, Sergeant Major. 
Robert Oram, Second Sergeant Major. 
Herdman Anderson, Drum Major. 
Tunothy Cook, Fife Major. 

Col. Hall did not march with his regiment, nor did he 
ever join it again. Having been seriously wounded at Ger- 
mantown, he had not recovered from it sufficiently to warrant 
his taking the field. Lieutenant-Colonel Pope was on fur- 
lough at the time of the march, and did not go South. 

They marched from Morristown to the Head of Elk, as it 
was called, now Elkton, in Cecil County, Maryland. This 
march was through Philadelphia and Wilmington — the dis- 
tance being 108 miles. They were veterans of three years' 
service, as thoroughly trained, as brave and as good soldiers 
as the Continental Army could turn out, and if Greene had 
only been assigned at that time to the command of the South- 
ern Department instead of Gates, their worse than decima- 
fion at Camden would have been avoided, and the lives of 
many of these noble and glorious men saved. A description 
of their appearance as they passed through Philadelphia on 
this march will be interesting. It is in a letter from a lady : 



32 REVOLUTIONARY SOLDIERS 

"What an army, said both Whig and Tory, as they saw them pass. 
The shorter men of each company in the front rank, the taller men behind 
them — some in hunting shirts — some in uniforms — some in common clothes 
— some with their hats cocked, and some without, and those who did cock 
them, not all wearing them the same way, but each man with a green sprig, 
emblem of hope, in his hat, and each bearing his firelock with what, even 
to uninstructed eyes, had the air of skillful training." 

From the Head of Elk all the troops were taken by water 
to Petersburg, in Virginia, except the Park of artillery, which 
went by land, guarded by a detachment from all the line. In 
the short description of the march, and of the state of the 
troops on it, and their want of provisions, I extract freely 
from a manuscript "Journal of the .Southern expedition, by 
William Seymour, a Sergeant Major of the Delaware Regi- 
ment," which Journal is now in the possession of the Histori- 
cal Society of Pennsylvania. Seymour says that the troops 
having all met at Petersburg on the 26th of May — remaining 
there four days, then left for Hillsborough in North Carolina, 
and arrived there on June 22d, — 469 miles from Head of Elk. 
From there they marched to Buffalo Ford, on Deep River, 
where General Gates took the command. "At this time, says 
Seymour, we were much distressed for want of provisions — 
men were sent out to cut the grain, (corn), for daily suste- 
nance — but could scarcely get enough to keep the troops from 
starving — which caused many of the men to desert." A little 
further on in his journal, in writing of this scarcity, he says : 

" That for fourteen days we drew but half pound of flour per man. 
Sometimes a half pound of beef, but so bad that scarce any mortal could 
make use of it: and we lived chiefly on green apples and peaches, which 
rendered us weak and sickly." 

George Washington Greene, in the life of his father. Gen. 
Greene, in describing the sufferings of our troops on this march, 
for the want of provisions, and whose description corresponds 
exactly with Seymour's, says, that the officers controlling 
their hunger, ate only of the lean and unsavory beef which 
they collected day by day in the woods— that is, they denied 
themselves the unripe corn, and green apples and green 



OF DELAWARE. 33 

peaches, and adding, some of them made soup out of their 
beef, and thickening their soup with hair powder. Gates had 
promised them when he took up his line of march from Deep 
River, "Rum and Rations," " that plentiful supplies were close 
at hand, and could not fail to reach them in one or at farthest 
two days." But in this, as in most of his promises in this cam- 
paign, he was deceiving his men. 

I have nothing to say of his promise of " riitn^' for in 
Revolutionary times an allowance of it daily was served with 
the rations. 

They were now approaching Camden, the theatre of their 
first great battle in the South, and where, though the issue 
was disastrous to the Americans, the Delaware and Maryland 
troops won imperishable renown. It is not my intention to 
describe this battle, at least at length ; nor indeed any of the 
other battles in which they were afterward engaged. To do 
this, would be foreign from the object of this paper ; all that 
I shall do will be to recount such parts as our Regiment took 
in them. The battle of Camden was fought as you all know, on 
August i6th, 1780. Seymour says under date of 13th, while 
encamped at Rugely's Mills, thirteen miles from Camden, 

"Here we were joined by about three thousand mihtia from Virginia, 
and North Carohna, which seemed a good omen of success, but proved ta 
be our utter ruin in the end, for, placing too much confidence in them, they 
at length deceived us, and left us in the lurch." 

In this, as we shall see, Seymour was right. In fact the 
battle was a mistake ; it was fought by Gates against the ad- 
vice of his officers, amongst whom conspicuously was De 
Kalb ; misfortunes of all kinds appeared to centre around 
them all the preceding night as well as the day of the battle. 
Seymour says that at midnight on the night of the 15th, just 
before the order to march, " instead of rum, we were given 
molasses, which instead of enlivening our spirits, jallop would 
have been no worse." Then on the march about one o'clock 
in the morning, the two armies met. They instantly, to use 
a militar}' phrase, felt each other, and Gates having with a 
fatuity which was remarkable in this fight, put Armand's 



34 REVOLUTIONARY SOLDIERS 

Corps, (which was a made up affair, out of all sorts of material — 
foreigners, deserters, &c.,) in front. They no sooner saw the 
flashes of the enemy's guns, than the whole corps turned its 
back and ran, carrying confusion and dismay into our ranks. But 
they not only fled, but robbed in their flight the Baggage 
Wagons of the Delaware and Maryland Regiments. Both 
armies now halting until daylight, renewed the fight just at 
daybreak, 07i the part of the Americans, as Seymour says, 
" with great alacrity and uncommon bravery," but the Militia, 
as he has declared, did prove to be their utter ruin. 

The veterans of the enemy composed his right, the Vir- 
ginia Militia our left — here should the Maryland and Dela- 
ware Regiments have been, for then it would have been vet- 
eran against veteran. 

As the enemy drew near, however, the Virginia Militia, 
some of them firing but once, some of them, without so much 
as firing a single shot, threw their loaded guns down, and 
basely retreated ; some, " throwing down their arms and run- 
ning into the enemy's ranks." The North Carolina Militia soon 
followed this shameful example. The Continentals, which 
were the Maryland regiments and our Delaware regiment, not 
fourteen hundred in all, with a single regiment of North Caro- 
linians, were alone left to oppose the enemy. They stood as 
men never stood before or since. My words are weighed, and I 
repeat them, " as men never stood before or since." With three 
thousand militia flying — tearing through their ranks, " bursting 
away like an unarmed torrent," with ail this demoralization, 
with Britain's best soldiers pressing them., the flower, it is said, 
of the British army, commanded by the best of Britain's officers, 
" they held their ground, charging and repelling charges, 
broken more than once, and borne down by superior numbers, 
but forming again and rallying and fighting bravely to the 
end. In vain did Otho Williams cry to his men, " Take trees, 
men, choose your trees, men, and give them an Indian charge." 
In vain did the gigantic DeKalb reform his ranks ^c'//£7z broken, 
and lead them to the charge when reformed. In vain did he 
cry, "Give them the bayonet, men ! give them the bayonet." 



OF DELAWARE. 35 

In vain did his clear voice ring out cheerily, exhorting, en- 
couraging, guiding, leading, while bullet after bullet struck 
him with fatal accuracy. What the bayonets of the enemy's 
foot could not do, the charge of Tarleton's cavalry did ; they 
broke before it, and what was left of the two Maryland and 
our Delaware Regiment, retreated. The Delaware Regiment 
went into this fight five hundred strong. Lee, in his memoirs ; 
Greene in the life of his father ; Otho Williams in his account 
of the battle, and our Sergeant Seymour in his diary, all use 
the same expression, the same language, viz : " In this battle 
the regiment of Delaware was nearly annihilated," and it was, 
really and truly. Of the five hundred, there remained after 
the battle — and remember the battle lasted scarcely an hour 
— four captains, seven subalterns, three staff officers, nineteen 
non-commissioned officers, eleven musicians and one hundred 
and forty-five (14$) rank and file, one Jiundrcd and eighty- 
eight in all. Eleven commissioned officers and thirty-six 
privates were made prisoners, forty-seven altogether, making, 
including prisoners, a total of two hundred and thirty-five, and 
leaving a dead roll of two hundred and sixty-five for a short 
fight of one hour. Well might the brave De Kalb, with his 
dying breath, " breathe benedictions on his faithful brave di- 
visions." Well might he say that it was glorious to die whilst 
leading such troops. Well might their bravery extort eulogies, 
as it did, from the enemy ; Cornwallis and Rawdon, and Web- 
ster, and even the proud, supercilious, bitter, and cruel soldier, 
Tarleton, praised them. 

So long as they could count on Armand's legion and the 
Virginia and North Carolina militia, victory appeared certain, 
for they greatly outnumbered the enemy. Numbers will tell, 
and they counted on them. But Armand fled before daylight, 
and the militia with the rising sun. Then De Kalb and Wil- 
liams, recognizing the emergency, gave their respective orders, 
the one for an " Indian charge," the other for the " Bayonet." 
And brav^ely were these orders obeyed : but decimation fol- 
lowed. Man for man, the result would have been different, 
but superiority of numbers and Tarleton's cavalry could not 
be resisted. Otho Williams says they stood too long, but it 



36 REVOLUTIONARY SOLDIERS 

was in obedience to orders ; they never received orders 
to retreat nor any order from any General officer from the 
commencement of the action until it became desperate. Gen. 
Gates himself was not there to observe the battle, and issue 
orders accordingly. He had gone off with the flying militia, 
and upon the evening of the day of the battle, was at Char- 
lotte, sixty miles away. It is not for me to find fault with 
him, when Gen. Greene and Henry Lee did not. After Sara- 
toga, he can scarcely be accused of cowardice, but he did, in 
my opinion, at Camden, notwithstanding Charles Lee's warn- 
ing, " exchange his Northern laurels for Southern willows." 

Among the officers of the Delaware Regiment who were 
taken prisoners, were Lieutenant-Colonel Vaughan, the com- 
mander of the Regiment, and Major Patten. They held the 
right, and had pressed the enemy back ; but the flight of the 
militia, relieving that portion of the enemies line in their iront, 
the opportunity was seized by him to attack them in flank. 
The capture of these officers shows where the Delaware Regi- 
ment was— in the advance. Vaughan starting, as we have 
seen, with the Regiment from Morristown as its Major, had by 
reason of Col. Hall's not joining it, become its Lieutenant- 
Colonel, and Captain John Patten, by reason of being its 
Senior Captain, became its Major. After their capture these 
officers were sent to Charleston, and after a detention of some 
time, were paroled, but not being exchanged, they did not, 
as they could not, join their Regiment. Their capture put the 
Regiment under the command of Kirkwood, who became 
Senior Captain, on Patten's promotion. At Charlotte and 
Hillsborough he collected what remained of the Regiment, 
and three companies of Light Lifantry being formed out of 
the different corps, to the command of one of them, composed 
of the remnants of the Delaware and Second Maryland Regi- 
ment, Captain Robert Kirkwood was assigned. They were in 
all the battles under Greene, in the South, from this time until 
the surrender of Charleston — Greene, as is well-known, having 
been sent South to relieve Gates, after the latter's failure at 
Camden.' They were at the Cowpens with Morgan, who told 
them the night before the battle, " Give them three fires. 



OF DELAWARE, 37 

Boys, and you are free !" "Yes, the old wagoner will crack 
his whip over Ben Tarleton in the morning, as sure as you 
live," — and he did. But the militia again ran : but this time 
only to take shelter behind the Continentals. Then it was 
that the battle was saved, by" Colonel Washington's Horse 
charging and breaking the English Cavalry, and the Delaware 
and Maryland Light Infantry " giving them the bayonet," 
under their General, Howard's, order. Seymour in his descrip- 
tion in his Diary, of this fight, says : 

" Tarleton endeavored to outflank us on the right, to prevent which, 
Captain Kirkwood wheeled his Company to the right and attacked their left 
flank so vigorously, that they were soon repulsed;" 

and then goes off into this not very grammatical, but doubt- 
less sincere panegyric of 

" Capt. Robert Kirkwood, whose heroick valour and uncommon and 
undaunted bravery must needs be recorded in history till after years." 

In this march to the Cowpens, he also gives this descrip- 
tion of the country, the people and their houses ; after speak- 
ing of the difficulties of the march, in crossing deep swamps 
and climbing very steep hills, he says : 

" The inhabitants along this way live very poorly; their plantations, un- 
cultivated, and living in mean houses ; they seem chiefly to be of the off- 
spring of the ancient Irish, being very affable and courteous to strangers." 

The regiment was with Greene in his celebrated retreat 
before Cornwallis from the left bank of the Catawba to the 
termination of his pursuit of him at Ramsay's Mills. In the 
management of this retreat, Greene is said to have displayed 
more of genius, and more of the marks of a great commander 
than he ever did before or afterward. One of his biogra- 
phers says : 

"Perhaps a brighter era does not adorn the military career 
of any leader." — Caldwell's Life, p. 250. 

It was in the course of zV, that he turned the current of 



38 REVOLUTIONARY SOLDIERS 

adverse fortune, which he afterward directed so that the 
enemy were swept from his numerous strongholds in the 
southern department, and contributed so pre-eminentl}' to 
the speedy and felicitous issue of the war. 

Our Sergeant, Seymour, in speaking of this march, says : 

"Most of the men were entirely without shoes, and that they marched 
night and day, and had no time to cook what provisions they had." 

It was on this march that it is related that Greene pass- 
ing a sentinel who was barefoot, said : 

" I fear my good fellow, you must suffer from cold." 
" Pretty much so," was the reply. "But I do not com- 
plain, for they say in a few days we shall have a fight, and 
then, by the blessing of God, I shall take care to secure a pair 
of shoes." 

The Delawares were with General Greene in the Battle of 
Guilford which followed, and which Seymour puts down in his 
diary, on the day of the fight, as a drawn battle if not a vic- 
tory, although Greene fell back. It was really a victory ; 
Greene claimed it, and Cornwallis, after the war was over, 
acknowledged it. Greene in his report of it speaks of the 
" (9/^ Delaware Company under the /^r^^'r captain Kirkwood, ' 
and in the same report, in speaking of an attack upon his line 
made by Lieutenant-Colonel Webster, of the enemy, (a brave 
and gallant officer, who was wounded in making it, and sub- 
sequently died) says, after mentioning another Bight of the 
North Carolina militia : 

" Here was posted the first regiment of Maryland, Colonel Gunby — 
* * the enemy rushed in to close fire, but so firmly was he received by 
this body of veterans, supported by Hawes' regiment of Virginia and Kirk- 
wood's company of Delawares, that with equal rapidity he was compelled to 
recoil from the shock. " 

And Henry Lee in his memoirs in describing this battle 
says : 

" That though the British General fought against two to one, he had 



OF DELAWARE. 39 

greatly the advantage in the quality of his soldiers — General Greene's 
veteran infantry being only the first regiment of Maryland, the cofupany of 
of Delaware tifider Kirkwood {'' to whom, he says in a parenthesis, none 
could be superior) and the legion infantry" — altogether making only 500 
rank and file." 

They were with Greene at Hobkirks Hill, or as it is some- 
times called " the second Battle of Camden." And here 
Kirkwood, if not assigned th.Q post of honor, was assigned to a 
most responsible position. In detailing his order of Battle, he 
says : 

" Kirkwood with his Light Infantry was placed in front to support the 
pickets, and retard the enemy's approach. As soon as the pickets began 
firing, Kirkwood hastened with his light infantry to their support, and the 
quick, sharp volleys from the woods told how bravely he was bearing up 
against the weight of the British Army. Still he was slowly forced back, 
disputing the ground foot by foot, to the hill on which the Americans were 
waiting the signal to begin. * * * And soon Kirkwood with his light 
infantry, and Smith with the camp guards and pickets were seen falling 
slowly back, and pressing close upon them the British van. A few mo- 
ments more, and Greene and Rawdon stood face to face." 

Greene in his orders of the day after the battle uses this 
language : 

'' Though the action of yesterday terminated unfavorably to the Ameri- 
can Arms, the General is happy to assure the troops that is by no means 
decisive. The extraordinary exertions of the cavalry, commanded by Lieut. 
Col. Washington, the gallant behavior of the light i)ifa)itry coDimanded by 
Captain Kir kzvood, and the firmness of the pickets under Captains r>enson 
and Morgan, rendering the advantage expensive to the enemy, highly merit 
the approbation of the General, and the imitation of the rest of the 
troops." 

Seymour in his diary says : 

"In this action the light infantry under Captain Robert Kirkwood were 
returned many thanks by Gen. Greene for their gallant behavior." 

Then they were with Greene in the siege of ninety-six. 
The orders were that Lieutenant Colonel Lee, with the legion 



40 REVOLUTIONARY SOLDIERS 

of infantry and Kirkwood's Delawares, are ordered to attack on 
the right : chosen men and true they are called in the life of 
Greene, and nobly did they sustain their character on this 
day. The assault failed, but Greene felt that he had reason 
to be proud of his army. In the afternoon orders, he says : 

" The General takes great pleasure in acknowledging the high opinion 
he has of the gallantry of the troops engaged in the attack of the enemy's 
redoubts. The judicious and alert behavior of the light infantry of the 
legion, and those commanded by Captain Kirkwood, directed by Lieutenant 
Colonel Lee, met with deserved success, &c. , &c." 

And then they were with Greene at Eutaw Springs, 
where, in giving the order of battle, it is said : Washington 
and Kirkwood closed the rear, forming a reserve of cavalry 
and the gallant infantry of Delaivare. In describing a portion 
of the fight, G. W. Greene, in the life of his father says, after 
speaking of Washington's attack with his cavalry, the shooting 
of his horse, and of his being wounded and taken prisoner : 

" Kirkwood and Hampton were now at hand, and the men of Delaware 
pressed forward with the bayonet, while Hampton, collecting the shattered 
remains of Washington's cavalry, still bleeding but not disheartened, made 
another trial with them, but the position was too strong to be forced, and 
tJunigJi Kirkwood held his ground, Hampton was compelled to retire." 

And Greene himself, in his letter to the President of Con- 
gress, giving a report of this battle, says : 

" I think myself principally indebted for the victory obtained, to the free 
use of the bayonet made by the Virginians and Maylanders, the infantry of 
the legion, and Captain Kirk%vood''s liqht iifantry, and though few armies 
ever exhibited equal bravery with ours in general, yet the conduct and intre- 
pidity of these corps were peculiarly conspicitoiis.'" 

This was the last battle in which the regiment was en- 
gaged. When the report of it was submitted to Congress by 
General Greene, they passed a resolution of thanks to him 
and his army, and included among them is this one : 

"That the thanks of the United States in Congress assembled be pre- 



OF DELAWARE. 41 

sented to the officers and men of the Maryland and Virginia brigades, and 
Delaware battalion of Continental troops, for the unparalleled bravery and 
heroism by them displayed in advancing to the enemy through an incessant 
fire, and charging them with an impetuosity and order that could not be 
resisted." — October 29th, 1781. 

This was virtuall}^ the end of the war. Cornwallis had 
surrendered, and there was little if any fighting afterwards : 
Seymour closes his diary with these words : 

" On November i6th, 1782, the Delaware Regiment had orders to hold 
themselves in readiness to march home from the southward. On the same 
day started from Head-quarters on the Ashley river for home; coming by 
way of Camden. Having arrived there November 22nd ; were detained 
thirteen days by orders from General Greene, left on December 5th; coming 
by way of Salisbury, Petersburgh, Carter's Ferry, on James River, we ar- 
rived at Georgetown in Maryland, January 12th, 1783 ; left there the same 
day and arrived at Christiana Bridge, on the 17th, after a march of seven 
hundred and twenty miles from Encampment on Ashley River, which was 
performed with very much difficulty, our men being so very weak after a 
tedious sickness which prevailed amongst them all last summer and fall." 

Before I take leave of Seymour, whose journal is very 
interesting, and the correctness and truthfulness of which is 
verified by the reports of others, Greene, Williams, Lee, 
&c., &c., I must quote a poetic tribute of his to Wash- 
ington, written in his Journal, and at the end of which his 
initials, " W. S." are signed. 

"O, Washington, thrice glorious name, 

What due rewards can man dicrie. 
Empires are far below thy aim, 

And sceptres have no charm for thee, 
Virtue alone has thy regard. 

And she must be thy great reward." 

W. S. 

If my object in this paper was an eulogy of the Delaware 
Regiment, instead of a history of it, and of such of its officers 
of whom any information can now be gathered, here is the 
place to stop and make it ; but to do so, would not only be a 



42 REVOLUTIONARY SOLDIERS 

diversion from the object of this paper, but time would not 
permit. But I must be permitted to say this, that never be- 
fore or since is there any record of as many battles in one 
campaign where the bayonet was so often resorted to — both 
sides believed in it. Cornwallis doubtless thinking that the 
half-clothed, barefooted, half-starved rebels could not stand 
before it in the hands of his " Buffs," his " Fusileer's," and his 
" Guards." But he mistook his men — those ragged, hungry 
soldiers were as good at it, and feared it less than the British 
soldiers. Greene, and Williams and Howard believed in it, 
and Kirkwood knew how to use it. In every battle their cry 
was, " Give them the bayonet, men, give them the bayonet," 
and the Delaware Regiment was always one of those se- 
lected to give them the bayonet. 

And again there is scarcely a general order issued by 
Greene in this whole campaign, after any of his battles, in 
which the Delaware Regiment is not particularly named as 
meriting especial praise. This, too, is a most high honor, and 
considering their almost total and absolute destitution of both 
clothing and provisions, from the beginning to the ending of 
the campaign, is remarkable. We have seen how they suf- 
fered for provisions in the outset. Throughout the whole cam- 
paign, it was but little, if any better. 

In clothing, they were worse off, many of them so badly 
off, that they could not go on parade. Of those who did 
appear, the ludicrous exhibition of shreds aad patches, odds 
and ends of uniforms and old clothes, made a variety to which 
no display of a mock military could possibly do justice. 

But all these things did not discourage our Continentals. 
The militia might run away, in battle after battle, as they 
almost invariably did, they only fought the harder. In fact, 
fighting was what they enlisted for and fighting was what they 
did. Greene truly described in one of his letters his own and 
his army's business — "We fight, get beat, rise and fight 
again." His especial eulogy of his Delaware soldiers, how- 
ever, was his remark, on his way north, after the war, " that 
they exceeded all soldiers he had ever seen, as they could 
fight all day and dance all night." 



OF DELAWARE. 43 

In Johnson's life of Greene, page 15, (second volume) in 
describing the battle of Guilford, he says : 

"Excepting the Infantry of the legion and Kirkwood's little corps of 
Delawares, the First Regiment of Marylanders was the only body of men in 
the American Army who could be compared to the enemy in discipline and 
experience, and it is with confidence that we challenge the modern world to 
produce an instance of better service, performed by the same number of 
men, in the same time." 

And here I may remark, that the Company from whom 
we obtained our sobriquet of " Blue Hen's Chickens" was not 
in this. Hall's Regiment, as is generally supposed, but in Col. 
Haslet's. The Company was Captain Jonathan Caldwell's, 
and was recruited entirely in Kent County. The Blue Hen's 
brood would have had but small chance of displaying their 
fighting propensities if they had been taken South, judging 
from the straits the men were in for want of provisions. 

David Hall, the Colonel of this Regiment, was born in 
Lewes, Sussex County ; was a lawyer by profession, and lived 
and practiced law at Lewes, at the time he joined Haslet's 
Regiment. Lewes was then, and up to about the beginning 
of this century, the county seat of Sussex County. He was 
quite young when he entered the army. He was with his 
Regiment up to the battle of Germantown. Here he was 
severely wounded, and as he did not join his regiment after- 
ward, the inference is, and from what I can gather of his his- 
tory, the fact was, that it was owing to this wound. He died 
in 18 1 8, having been in the year 1802 elected Governor of the 
State. His descendants still reside in Sussex County ; one 
of them, a grandson — Mr. John W. Walker — in Wilmington. 

The first Lieutenant-Colonel was Charles Pope. He lived 
at Smyrna, and was a merchant. It is to be regretted that so 
little can be learned as to his history, this is owing probably 
to his removal with his family, prior to 1800, to Georgia. He 
continued with his Regiment until 1779, when, as I find by the 
returns of the Regiment in the Secretary of State's office, at 
Dover, he came home on furlough, and I cannot find that he 



44 REVOLUTIONARY SOLDIERS 

ever afterwards joined it. He certainly did not go South with 
it. He is represented to have been a bold, dashing officer. 

Major and subsequently Lieutenant Colonel Vaughan 
lived in or near Bridgevi'le, in Sussex county. Unfortunately 
little is known of his early history. He was an Englishman, 
and was engaged in the iron business, and had a furnace near 
Concord, in Sussex county. He joined Haslet's Regiment, 
and in November 1776, held the post of Captain. Upon the 
organization of Hall's Regiment he was elected its Major, and 
held that position until the Regiment was ordered South in 
April, 1780. Col. Hall not marching with his regiment, nor 
the Lieutenant Colonel Pope either, Major Joseph Vaughan 
was promoted from his Majority to the Lieutenant Colonelcy; 
he went South with the regiment, but unfortunately, was 
taken prisoner at Camden, and not having been exchanged, 
was never with it afterwards. All the reports we have name 
him as a brave and efficient officer. After the war he removed 
into what is known in the lower part of the State as " The 
Fork," that is, that portion of the country between the two 
branches of the Nanticoke. This tract is altogether in Mary- 
land, but lies adjacent to our State line. Here Lieutenant 
Colonel Vaughan died, but when, is not known. From his 
living there, the presumption is that he was a farmer ; but 
this is only inference. These facts were communicated to me 
by Hon. John W. Houston, and J. R Elligood, being all that 
they have ever been able to collect in relation to this gallant 
officer. 

John Patten was a farmer, near Dover. He was appointed 
a Lieutenant in Haslet's Regiment, and in September 1776, 
when Congress called for troops to serve during the war, and 
fixed our quota at a regiment, or battalion as they called it, 
he raised a company, was made its captain, and his company 
was the first to join the regiment, and thus he became senior Cap- 
tain. Upon their order to the South, Major Vaughan was 
promoted to the Lieutenant Colonelcy. Captain Patten, by 
virtue of his seniority among the captains, was promoted to be 
Major, and with Vaughan, was taken prisoner at Camden, and 



OF DELAWARE. 45 

being parolled, but not exchanged, did not afterward join his 
regiment. He was a gallant, brave officer ; indeed, his and 
Vaughan's capture shows that on that morning they were in 
their right place — at the head of their regiment. He was with 
Haslet's regiment in the Battle of Brooklyn and White Plains, 
and fought with Hall's bravely at Brandywine, Germantown, 
and Monmouth. He returned to his farm after his parole, and 
upon the adoption of the United States Constitution, was elect- 
ed to the Third Congress, as representative from this State. 
His seat, however, having been contested by Henry Latimer, 
he was unseated, but was subsequently elected to the Fourth 
Congress. His son, Joseph Patten, is now a resident of 
Wilmington, and his daughter having married the late John 
Wales, Esq., his grand-children by that marriage are also 
among our most respected citizens. 

Robert Kirkwood was born in Mill Creek Hundred, 
on the farm lately held by the heirs of Andrew Gray, Esq., 
near to White Clay Creek Church. His sister having married 
and settled in Newark, he was living with her at the outbreak 
of the Revolution, and was engaged in mercantile pursuits 
He obtained a lieutenancy in Haslet's regiment, was with it at 
Brooklyn and White Plains, and like most of Haslet's officers 
sought and obtained positions in the new regiment to be 
raised under the call of September 1776, for men to serve 
during the war. His company was the second one to join the 
regiment, Patten's as we have seen, being the first. Patten's 
commission as Captain is dated November 30th, and Kirk- 
wood's, December ist, 1776 ; only one day's difference. The 
officers of Haslet's regiment who joined Hall's, did not par- 
ticipate in the Battle of Trenton and Princeton ; they had been 
permitted to come home in October and November to recruit 
for what Congress then greatly wanted— men to serve during 
the war ; and Hall's regiment was not fully organized at the 
date of these battles— in fact it did not join the army until the 
month of April, 1777. Hall's commission as Colonel, is 
dated April 5th, 1777. 

Kirkwood was with his Regiment at Brandywine, German- 



46 REVOLUTIONARY SOLDIERS 

town, Monmouth, went south with it, and upon the capture of 
Vaughan and Patten, succeeded to the command, by virtue of 
his being Senior Captain, after Patten's promotion as Major — 
of what was left of it after Camden. 

On that day, as we have seen, Maryland and Delaware by 
their noble stand, saved whatever there was of honor, but it 
was at the cost of their almost entire annihilation. Kirkwood 
gathered them up, man by man, as they came into Salisbury 
and Hillsborough, and they were constituted into his famous 
Light Infantry Company, and were in all the battles after- 
ward, from Cowpens to Eutavv. Whether it was Greene, or 
Morgan, or Williams, or Howard, or Lee, speaking in general 
order, in letter, or in private conversation, it was always " The 
Brave Kirkwood and his Delawares," or " Kirkwood and his 
brave Delawares." Is any higher eulogium possible ? Greene, by 
odds, the general of the revolution — its soldier — praise from 
him — the others, their fellow soldiers, the officers under whose 
eyes, and by whose orders they gave the enemy the Bayonet, 
— praise from them — it must have been deserved. To show what 
Lee thought of Kirkwood, let me read what he says in his mem- 
oirs ; in speaking of the battle of Camden, and of the Dela- 
ware Regiment being placed, after the capture of Vaughan and 
Patten, under Kirkwood's command as Senior Captain. 

" The State of Delaware furnished one regiment only, and certainly no 
regiment in the army surpassed it in soldiership. The remnant of that 
corps, less than two companies, from the battle of Camden, was commanded 
by Captain Kirkwood, who passed through the war with high reputation ; 
and yet as the line of Delaware consisted but of one regiment, and that reg- 
iment was reduced to a Captain's command — Kirkwood never could be pro- 
moted in regular routine, — a very glaring defect in the organization of the 
army, as it gave advantages to parts of the same armies, denied to other 
portions of it. The sequel is singularly hard. Kirkwood retired, upon peace, 
as a Captain, and when the army under St. Clair was raised to defend the 
West from the Indian Enemy, this veteran resumed his sword as the oldest 
Captain of the oldest regiment. In the decisive defeat of the 4th of Novem- 
ber, the gallant Kirkwood fell, bravely sustaining his point of the action. It 
was the thirty-third time he had risked his life for his country, and he died, 
as he had lived, the brave, meritorious, unrewarded Kirkwood." 



OF DELAWARE. 47 

Virginia alone recognized and appreciated his services. 
She, by a grant made in 1787, gave him two thousand acres of 
lands in the North-west territory, which are still held by his 
grand children, the land being in what is now the State of 
Ohio. His fate was peculiarly hard and unfortunate ; he 
passed through thirty-two battles and skirmishes in the revo- 
lution,, and by great good fortune safely — never even seriously 
wounded, but in this defeat of St. Clair, a relatively small In- 
dian fight, he was killed. St. Clair, the most unfortunate of 
all of our revolutionary Generals, was led into ambush by the 
Indians, and his whole command slaughtered." 

I distinctly recollect two of the officers of this regiment, 
Major Bennett, and Major Jacquett. 

Major Bennett, a tall, spare, old man, wearing knee 
breeches, is very distinct in my memory. He lived in the 
house(in Wilmington) now occupied by Dr. Kane, and could be 
seen any summer afternoon, sitting upon his front pavement, 
engaged in what we boys did not think a very manly employ- 
ment, knitting yarn or cotton stockings, but yet, as a Revolu- 
tionary hero, was looked at with a sort of awe. He was elected 
Governor of this Stace in 1832, but did not live out his term of 
office, dying in 1836.1- 

Major Peter Jacquett was a small, thick set man. His 
family were quite large landholders in New Castle Hundred. 
After the war he settled on his farm at the end of the cause- 
way, on the road from Wilmington to New Castle, and lived 
there till his death in 1834. He and Bennett, unlike soldiers 
generally, were not friends ; they had not spoken to each 
other for years prior to Jacquett's death. From what I have 
heard of Jacquett, it was a hard matter for any one to keep 
on speaking terms with him. He was a cross, morose, quar- 



* Kirkwood married a Miss England, of White Clay Creek Hundred, in New Castle County. 
He left two children — a son and daughter — Joseph, the son, removed to Ohis — where a large family 
survive him. Mary, the daughter, married Arthur Whiteley, of Dorchester County, Maryland, and 
died in 1850, leaving two children— Gen. R. H. K. Whiteley, of the Army, and Mrs. Mary A. Mar. 
tin, of Newark. 

t He had three children— the late Captain Charles W. Bennett, of the U. S. R. M., and two 
daughters, Mrs. Lyell and Mrs. Pardee. 



48 REVOLUTIONARY SOLDIERS 

relsome man. Upon one occasion, having lost some wheat, 
he, without cause, accused a neighbor, a very respectable 
man, a Mr. Thomas Tatlow, of stealing it, and wherever he 
went he was open and loud in his assertion that " Tom 
Tatlow was a thief." Tatlow sued him for slander, and re- 
covered quite a heavy verdict. The late Judge Booth, 
who was his counsel, in explaining to him his liability for 
his charge against Tatlow, told him that certain language 
was actionable in itself, that is, if he called Tatlow a thief, 
or charged him with any other felony, Tatlow could re- 
cover without showing any special damage, but that there 
were certain names which he could call him, without ren- 
dering himself liable to damages, unless Tatlow could show 
special damage. This explanation of the Judge, was the old 
soldier's chance. He persuaded the Judge to put these words 
on paper, and wherever and whenever he afterward met Tat- 
low, he would out with his paper, and beginning at the first 
would go through the roll of names, so long as Tatlow 
remained in earshot. 

The inscription upon his tomb in the (31d Swede's Church, 
in Wilmington, states : 

"That he was born April 6th, 1754, and died upon his farm at Crane 
Hook, September 13, 1834, aged 80 years. 

"That he joined the Delaware Regiment, January 4th, 1776, and was 
in every general engagement under Washington which took place in Dela- 
ware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York and the Eastern States ; was 
ordered South to the Southern army under Gates, and with the brave 
De Kalb was in the battle of Camden, where the Delaware Regiment of 
eight Companies was reduced to two, of ninety-six men each, and when the 
command devolved on Kirkwood and himself as oldest Captains. Was in 
the battles of Guilford, second battle of Camden, seige of '96. and battle 
of the village of that name ; battle of Eutaw Springs, and in every other 
battle under Greene, until the capture of Cornwallis at Yorktown." 

This is a little too strongly and freely drawn, but is. in 
the main, true. Major Jacquett left no children. 

Edward Roche, died within my memory. He was a small 
man, living in Seventh Street, following the occupation of a 
Scrivener, and dying in the year 1833. 



OF DELAWARE. 49 

Capt. John Corse was from Smyrna. 

Lieutenant William McKennan was from Christiana Hun- 
dred. His father was a clergyman, and preached at what is 
yet called McKennan's Meeting House. 

Lieutenant Stephen McWilliam was from New Castle. 
However, of them little information has been obtained, and 
so of Gilder, Purvis, Learmonth, Wilson, Rhodes, and Cox 
as one hundred years have played sad havoc with every thing 
connected with them but their reputation. In the case of 
most of them, their names are not now found among us, 
and all we can do is to honor and praise them as soldiers. 

In speaking of the officers of the line, the staff must not 
be overlooked. We furnished two surgeons of distinction, Drs. 
Latimer and Tilton. 

Dr. Henry Latimer was born in Newport, in 1752. He 
commenced the study of medicine in Philadelphia, and com- 
pleted it by graduating at the Medical College of Edinburgh. 
Upon his return home he commenced the practice of his profes- 
sion in Wilmington, but in 1777 he, as well as Dr. Tilton, were 
appointed Surgeons in the Continental Arm}^ and were at- 
tached to what was called the Flying Hospital, and were with 
the army in all the battles in the Northern Department, from 
Brandywine to Yorktown. He acquired quite a distinction as 
a surgeon, and on Peace he returned to the practice of his 
profession. He was elected a member of our Legislature, 
after our State organization ; also to Congress from 1793 to 
1795, and was elected in 1794 by the Legislature one of the 
Senators from this State in Congress, and served out his con- 
stitutional term. He died in 1819. Mr. Read states, in his 
life of his father, that Dr. Latimer was the Surgeon of the 
Delaware Regiment : this is a mistake ; he was attached to no 
particular regiment. Henry Latimer, Esq., of Wilmington, is 
his son. 

Dr. James Tilton's history is about the same as Dr. Lati- 
mer's. He entered the army as Surgeon of Colonel Haslet's 
Regiment. He was also skilled and honored as a surgeon. 
Upon the return of Peace he settled on the property now 



50 REVOLUTIONARY SOLDIERS 

owned by William Rowland ; was Surgeon-General of the 
army in the war of 1812, and died in 1818. 

I regret that my information is so meagre as to the offi- 
cers of the regiment, none at all in fact as to some of them. 
I have done, however, the best possible under the circum- 
stances. The great lapse of time, the change and removal 
of their families, the seeming negligence, both upon the part 
of the State and of their descendants, in the preservation of 
papers relating to them, prevent at this time almost any ac- 
curate record. But their deeds, their sufferings, their valor, 
should never be forgotten. It was more to be a soldier in 
those days, than it is now. The improvement in arms of all 
kinds — the increased range of our modern guns, better ammu- 
nition, everything which war requires, has been so improved 
that the soldier of 1875, scarcely appreciates the difficulties of 
the soldier of 1775. What would our people now think of the 
only Commissary Department of an army being the corn fields 
and orchards on its line of march, and yet this was the case 
with our own and the Maryland Regiments upon their march to 
the South. And that was not all ; of clothing they were equally 
destitute, and yet these men crossed bayonets almost daily 
with the bravest of England's veterans. 

Ramsey, in his history of the United States, vol. i, p. 209, 

says : 

" The Delaware Regiment was reckoned the most efficient in the Conti- 
nental Army. It went into active service soon after the commencement of 
the contest with Great Britain, and served through the whole of it. Court- 
ing danger wherever it was to be encountered, frequently forming part of a 
victorious army, but oftener the companions of their countrymen in the 
gloom of disaster, the Delawares fought at Brooklyn, at Trenton and at 
Princeton, at Brandywine and at Germantown, at Guilford and at Eutaw, 
until at length reduced to a handful of brave men, they concluded their 
services with the war in the glorious termination of the Southern campaign." 

And I conclude this feeble tribute to their memory by saying 
they were indeed 

" Chiefs graced with scars, and prodigal of blood, 
Stern warriors who for sacred freedom stood." 



ADDENDA. 



-:o:- 



A. 

Captain Allen McLane, the father of the late Hon. Louis 

McLane and Dr. Allen McLane, early in the war, enlisted a 

partisan company, and served faithfully and bravely through- 

•out the war. He was in most if not all the battles in the 

Northern Department, and in the battle of Yorktown. 

I subjoin a roll of his company for the months of March, 
April and May, 1779. 



Captain Allen McLane' s partisan Company of foot, in the service of the 

United States, taken for the months of March, April, May and 

Jnne, 1779. 



Captain, Allen McLane, commissioned January 13, 1777. 

First Lieutenant, A. M. Dunn, commissioned January 13, 1777. 

Second Lieutenant, Wm. Jones, " " " " 

Wyoming, April 17, 1779. 
First Sergeant, John Edenfield. 
Second Sergeant, John Hegan. 
First Corporal, Matthew Cusick, 
Drummer, Philip Wheylon. 



killed at 



Third Sergeant, George Rowan. 
Fourth Sergeant, Robert Farrell. 
Second Corporal, John Vandegrift. 
Fifer, Eliazer Crane. 



Privates. 



James Burk, 
Lidford Berry, 
Edward Hines, 
Thomas Finn, 
Thomas Wells, 



John Rowles, 
William Stratton, 
Robert Soloway, 
Perry Scott, 
Charles McMunigill, 



52 REVOLUTIONARY SOLDIERS 

Thomas Parker, James Longo, 

Barret Alley, Henry Harneyman, 

Francis Bilstone, Moses McLane, 

Ezekiel Clark, Patrick Dagney, 

Lazarus Carmedy, John Butcher. 



B. 

To show what were the privations of the soldiers of that 
day, I subjoin an address from the officers of Hall's Regiment 
to the General Assembly, on December 4th, 1779. 

Address from the Officers of the Delaware Regiment, to the Honorable, the 

Representatives in the General House of Assembly, of the Delaware 

State, now sitting in Wilmington, December /^th, 1779. 

We, the Officers of the Delaware Regiment, do, in the most grateful 
manner, thank the Honorable, the House of Assembly, for the two generous 
Resolves they were pleased to pass in our favor. But whilst we thus express 
our gratitude, we cannot but complain, that through some defect in the 
Resolves, or neglect in those who were intrusted with the execution of them, 
we find our situation little better than it was before they were passed. We 
have yet received but two month's of the supplies allowed, and have no pros- 
pect of receiving any more, as Colonel Craighead informs the Commanding 
Officer in a letter, dated October 7th, '79? that he has received but 1400 
pounds to purchase a quarterly supply of necessaries, that it is inadequate to 
the purpose, and therefore desires we will each take a dividend of that money 
in lieu of the necessaries which we are entitled to receive from him, by the 
Resolve of the Honorable House. This desire we must refuse to comply 
with, for we cannot conceive that the Honorable House would wish we 
should compound with Colonel Craighead, and accept one-third of the 
value, instead of the articles ; as this would, in a very great measure, deprive 
us of the benefit of the Resolve, and again subject us to suffer by the depre. 
ciation of our currency, which evil their Resolve was generously intended to 
prevent. 

We further beg leave to acquaint the Honorable House that of the suit 
of clothes, which they have ordered us to be supplied with, though the 
season is so far advanced, none of us have received a full suit, some, not one 
article, and in general, we want many things that are difficult to obtain, and 
cannot be dispensed with at this season, but at the risk of our health. 



OF DELAWARE. 53 

We would also beg leave to represent to the Honorable House, how 
necessary a part of an Officer's dress a hat is,and that we imagine a mistake 
only was the cause of its not being enumerated among the other articles of 
clothing, and, therefore, hope they will be pleased to allow us that useful 
article. We also hope the Honorable House will continue their bounty by 
allowing us a suit of clothes yearly, at least whilst the currency remains 
depreciated. 

Laboring under many difficulties which the distance from our respective 
homes, and the general depreciation of the money had thrown upon us, we 
were once before obliged to make application to the Honorable House for 
their assistance in removing or alleviating them. The spirit of generosity 
shown in their resolves on that occasion, encourages us to submit this to their 
consideration, confident that the welfare and honor of the Regiment, that 
claims this patronage, are next to the happiness of their country, their 
greatest wish, and that upon this representation of our case, they will mi- 
nutely enquire, from what cause their resolves have not been executed, and 
make such provision for their execution, as will in future prevent appHcations 
of this kind from their 

Very humble servants, 

C. P. Bennett, L. D., Peter Jacquett, Capt. D. R. 

Edward Roche, Lieut, and P. M. J. Learmonth, Capt. D. R. 

Thos. Anderson, Lieut, and Q. M. John Wilson, Capt. D. R. 

R. Gilder, Surgeon. Daniel P. Cox, Lieut. 

John Platt, S. Mate. Henry Duff, Lieut. 

J. Vaughan, M. D. R. E. Skillington, Lieut. 

Robert Kirkwood, C. D. R. Chas. Kidd, Lieut. 

John Corse, Lt. D. R. Stephen McWilliams, Ensign D. R. 



C. 



The tradition in the State is, that our soldiers received 
the name of " Blue Hen's Chickens," from the fact that a 
Captain Caldwell took with his company, game chickens, 
which were from the brood of a blue hen, celebrated in Kent 
County for their fighting qualities ; and that the officers and 
men of this company, when not fighting the enemy, amused 
themselves fighting chickens. 

There were two Captain Caldwells, Captain Joseph Cald- 



54 REVOLUTIONARY SOLDIERS 

well, of Colonel Patterson's Regiment (Flying Camp,) and 
Captain Jonathan Caldwell, of Colonel Haslet's Regiment. 

From the best evidence which I have been able to obtain, 
it was from Captain Jonathan Caldwell and his company, that 
our soldiers derived the name. I, therefore, in honor of the 
brave Captain, his officers and men, add a roll of the company. 

Captain Jonathan Caldivell's Company in Ccl. Haslefs Regiment. 

Captain, Jonathan Caldwell. 
First Lieutenant, John Patten. 
Second Lieutenant, George McCall. 
Ensign, James Stevens. 

First Sergeant, John Depoister. 
Second Sergeant, Joseph Campbell. 
Third Sergeant, John Rowan. 
Fourth Sergeant, John Corse. 
First Corporal, John McCannon. 
Second Corporal, John Dewees. 
Third Corporal, Robert Oram. 
Fourth Corporal, Isaac Matthews. 
Drummer, Robert Thompson. 
Fifer, Cornelius Comegys. 

Privates. 

John Shearn, John Hart, 

James Millington, Francis Blair, 

John Manning, John Wilson, 

John Kinnamon, John May, 

Michael McGinnis, Thomas Finn, 

Robert Solway, George Riall, 

William Plowman, Peter Grewell, 

John Allen, William Perry, 

John Butler, Ephriam Townsend, 
Jacob Wilson, - Isaac Cox, 

Nathan Bowen, John Matthews, 

John Pegg, William Hall, 

George Bateman, Mark Ivans, 

Joseph Robinson, Hosea Wilson, 

^^ James Carson, John Edingfield, 

John Nickerson, Nathan Gaus, 



OF DELAWARE. 55 

John Spring, Lewis Humphreys, 

Zachariah Baily, Kimber Haslet, 

Peter Bice, Garrett Fagan, 

ames Robinson, Harman Clarke, 

John Simmons, John Tims, 

Robert Graham, Lambert Williams, 

John Kelly, W iHiam Mott, 

Allen Robinett, Alexander McDowell, 

William Edingfield, Daniel Lawley, 

Robert Ferrell, Peter Wilcox. 



THE 

REVOLUTIONARY SOLDIERS 



OF 



DELAWARE. 



A PAPER 



READ BY 



WILLIAM G. WHITELEY, ESQ., 



BEFORE THE TWO HOUSES OF THE DELAWARE LEGISLATURE, 



February 15th, 1875. 



PRINTED BY ORDER OF THE LEOISLATURE. 



WILMINGTON, DELAWARE: 

JAMES & WEBB, PRINTERS, 
1875. 



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